


good to be alive

by sleepinnude



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cas said 'I could go with you' and I heard 'I love you', Episode: s12e01 Keep Calm and Carry On, First Kiss, M/M, Mary Winchester Ships Castiel/Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:42:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25433326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepinnude/pseuds/sleepinnude
Summary: Ash falling in their hair at a graveyard and the whole of their ragtag crew around them, Cas offered to go with him. Cas tipped his head back from the embrace enough to catch Dean’s gaze and offered to do what he always offered to do: walk beside Dean into almost certain death.[an inset for 12.01 - Keep Calm And Carry On]
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 139





	good to be alive

**Author's Note:**

> an anon prompted "first kiss in canonverse" and cas's "i could go with you" has been living in my head rent-free since it first aired.

There’s a moment, just a minute, as they’re heading for the garage, when Mary is ahead of them (that’s still a head trip, his _Mom_ ) and Dean reaches out to stop Cas. The angel stalls up and looks at him and even that, just Cas’s eyes on his with his head canting to the side is something Dean didn’t think he would get to have again. 

Ash falling in their hair at a graveyard and the whole of their ragtag crew around them, Cas offered to go with him. Cas tipped his head back from the embrace enough to catch Dean’s gaze and offered to do what he always offered to do: walk beside Dean into almost certain death.

Some small part of Dean, the part that was still a four year old crying for momma, a sixteen year old who wanted to go to a dance, a twenty-six year old looking at his brother and admitting that he didn’t want to be alone, that piece of Dean wanted to scream yes. Wanted to sink, relieved, into Cas’s arms and nod against the smoke-scented pocket of his lapels and sob out a chanting litany of _yes, yes, yes, please, don’t make me go alone, please_. After all the torment of Lucifer wearing Cas, he was finally back and Dean was going to walk away from him. 

But it would have been selfish, it would have been too much to ask. So Dean mumbled something about having to do it himself and stepped back, stepped up to Sammy, made himself not look back at the angel. (That much was true, at least, what he asked of Cas, to be there for Sam. His brother would’ve needed someone and it meant that Cas wouldn’t do anything stupid either.)

And here, in a dim corridor of their home, Dean has his hand on Cas’s elbow and Cas is looking at him with some kind of certainty. “Dean,” he says and god, his voice, Dean didn’t think he would get to hear his voice again either, “are you all right?”

Dean nods and then swallows and then shakes his head. He takes a step closer, brackets his other hand at Cas’s other elbow. “Thank you,” he says softly.

Cas gives him a look like his heart is breaking. “Don’t thank me. I - The one thing you asked of me, Dean, and I failed. I lost Sam, within minutes of losing you.”

Dean shakes his head. “You know how this works. We deal with it, like we always have. We’ll find him. I’m not worried about that.” Cas still looks forlorn, eyes down as he passed one hand over the other. Dean brings his hands down, over the canvas of the trench coat sleeves, and cups Cas’s hands in his own. “Cas, man…” He closes his eyes. “Before. At the cemetery. You said-”

Cas is still looking down, at their hands. His fingers flex minutely and Dean can feel every brush of skin on skin. “I… I meant it. I wanted - Dean. You were going to die. And I… I wasn’t sure what would be left of me. I’m still not. Without you.” Cas sighs and he won’t look Dean in the eye, even when Dean crouches and tips his chin to try and catch his sight-line.

“I don’t want you thinkin’ that way. I don’t want you hitching all your hope to my wagon, you know.”

Cas breathes out something close to a laugh. Shakes his head. “That’s a ridiculous metaphor,” he gruffs, but there’s a twist of a smile over his mouth. And then he looks up, looks right at Dean. “And I’m afraid it’s too late. I have long been…hitched to you, Dean Winchester.” It’s as good an admission as any.

Dean swallows a laugh of his own at that and then what else can he do but lean forward. What else can he do but fit his hands against Cas’s waist, bunch them in that stupid fucking coat, and pitch their mouths together, slot their chins at angles, close his eyes and let himself, finally, kiss the angel.

Cas kisses back and Dean doesn’t think of Meg, or Daphne, or April, or that Gas ‘n Sip manager from Idaho. He just thinks _Cas_ and, maybe, somewhere, _fuck_.

A part of him, that screaming, squalling part, wanted to do this at the cemetery. To know what it was like before kicking it. But something else folded up that impulse, told him it would be selfish, that Cas didn’t want it and if he did that was even worse, to kiss him, finally, and then go off and die.

Cas’s fingers are clutched at Dean’s shoulders and he wonders, idly, if he could get Cas to put that handprint brand back on the one shoulder from when he healed it out at Stull. He wonders, idly, if there’s a starburst on his chest from where the soulbomb had rested.

They pull apart at the sound of a clearing throat. Mary is there and Dean is about two decades too old to be getting caught making out with dudes by his mother. She’s grinning though, like she gets the humor of it all too, and has a hand on her hip. “I guess we kiss angels in the future?” she says, eyebrow raised.

“We didn’t,” Cas offers and Dean shoves him away because it’s been eight years and he knows when Cas is being an asshole. The confirmation come in a bright laugh from Cas and Dean marks another tally of things he thought he would never get to have again.

“All right, let’s go,” Dean says. His cheeks are red and there’s heat coming up his neck and the tips of his ears. But he can hear the lilt of his mother’s laughter echoing up toward the garage and Cas slides his hand into his and for the first time in recent memory, Dean thinks, _Fuck, it’s good to be alive_. And then, for certainly not the first time, _We’re coming, Sammy._

**Author's Note:**

> [rebloggable on tumblr](https://sweatercas.tumblr.com/post/624272934794641408/im-craving-some-of-your-beautiful-destiel-words)!


End file.
